Glasgow School of Art
Innovation School
Product Design
The biggest challenge of this project was to create a collaborative space between different people in the Basque Country ecosystem. I contacted my old high school, which has an applied arts stream. Their students study different forms of design and are also confronted with various exercises of plastic expression. The aim of this approach was to create some workshops with mixed groups of students in order to confront them with my speculative design practice. I wanted to share my practice with them and get a fresh experience that would be stimulating for my project.
I started by presenting my brief to the three teachers who supervise the final year Applied Art class at Cantau High School; Orélie Saada, Cécile Cano and Gaelle Deucun. Orélie and Cécile were also my teachers when I was in this school. This was also a way to start closing the loop of my teaching in this school.
"We have to go and study abroad afterwards and come back to compare our experiences," said Mrs Nouave, one of my teachers at the time.
The three teachers were very enthusiastic about my proposal and so we co-wrote a brief with Cécile for their class of 30 students, on water resources in 2100, in the Basque Country: "THE NEW WATER RITUALS".
Nice meeting with the students of the Lycée Cantau in Anglet, Basque Country, southwest of France.
For this first and subsequent meetings fu: input on my practice, my experience at Glasgow School of Art, and speculative design and a whole project of almost 2 months with the students.
The first step, after the project reading, was our first collective brainstorming. I was pleasantly surprised by the intensity of this one.
As the activity progressed I learned to adapt my dialogue to the students and to exchange on my work.
We had meetings every Monday and Friday. Sometimes I would lead small activities and the rest of the time I would work in the room, they were on their own and I would drop in from time to time to ask them about their progress. Their project was divided into 3 main parts: a collective analysis, a personal analysis and a plastic one, in order to create their future scenario, their users (the students of 2100) and their concepts.
Being in front of 30 students in a classroom setting is impressive, but with the health situation this little collaborative paradise quickly zoomed in and the task became more complicated. I have experimented with remote working as a student but I had never tested my ability to keep up with 30 remote projects while building my own.
I went a bit fast sometimes and perhaps I had too high an expectation of their speed of formal reflection. I had to shape the way I collaborated each time I saw them by adapting to their pace while leading the progress of our project: modelling part of my virtual exhibition with their project and their visions of 2100.
To celebrate their commitment and our progress together towards a sensitive reflection of the future of 2100, I have dedicated the future living space to their projects. How would the student of 2100 live? How would they consume, store and transport water in 2100?
This work is a way to engage the younger generation with the complex and very real issues that global warming represents today and has represented for several years now.
This project allowed me to learn and to pass on. I understood at the end of this project that this part of the collaboration deserved a product in itself. So I asked myself how to give shape to this methodology.
At first, I thought of a simple pdf playing with the question of how to learn and research the future.
Then I decided to create a manifesto in the form of cards.
I took the same name as my 4th year dissertation "Social dreamer" A writing about How as a tool speculative design stimulates our imagination?
These weeks of work with the students were intense and very rich. The first approaches were a bit laborious, but day after day we got to know each other and I felt more at ease. It is a strange and at the same time very important exercise, to know how to explain and teach your practice. I feel like I have reached a certain maturity in my practice as a design student to be able to pass on my learning tools. We created mood boards, scenarios, and explored them together with their visions of my context. I felt it was important to pass on these skills in a manifesto as part of this collaboration. My approach with them was very simple and after I was adapting to their feedbacks.
I was very impressed by the quality of work of this class and their generosity. These students are part of the future of our society and it is incredible to have access to and question their way of thinking.
You can find the archive of all their efforts in the Future Living section of this exhibition.
They allowed me to get to know a part of myself that likes to teach and pass on while questioning myself thanks to their fresh approach to my ideas and social concepts.
